If you don't want to do it virtually...how about see through

I've always wondered with technology the way it is, why are students still dissecting animals for biology classes. Why not use a computer program that's been around for 15+ years and just do it virtually? No more sad little screams of "YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT TO THE FROG?!?!"

Well Japanese scientists have come up with another way that maybe teachers will latch onto instead. How about a see through frog? No need to cut Kermit open when you can now instead watch all his organs, veins, and eggs (Kermit's sister) develop over the span of its life.
Photograph by Ho New/Reuters

Microsoft Surface Makes Guest Appearance on CSI Miami

Well to my delight the new season of fall shows has begun. Thank goodness for satellite so that I can watch one show, pvr another and then catch another one during a different timezone showing.

Last night I was catching up on all the new episodes of CSIs; Miami, New York, Las Vegas, NCSI. During CSI Miami I was quite excited to see that they were now using right in the middle of their lab a Microsoft Surface. A parole officer had been killed by one of his parolees. So how better to find a list of call his charges but to look through his Blackberry. How better to get the data off the Blackberry then to place it down onto a Microsoft Surface. If you've looked at the Microsoft promo spots on their site then you would recognize the telltale ripple marks that immediately appeared when the mobile was set down instantly linking the two (pic). Then, like some magical ballet, the character Calleigh begins to wave her hands over the Surface and sorts all the bad guys instantly into lists of bad to evil, and one MO from another.

Now I wonder if it was a one shot product placement or if the Surface will have a recurring role.

Developing an e-Learning Strategy and Architecture - Lance Dublin (Elluminate Webinar)

Developing an e-Learning Strategy and Architecture - Lance Dublin

This was my first Elluminate webinar and it was quite neat to see a different format then I have seen before. One tool I haven't used before was a whiteboard that participants can add too and slides can be altered as the presenter speaks. All participants can use a mic if wanted.

Webinar points:

Yesterday's communication - same time , same place (ie: meetings, phone calls)
Today's Communication - any time, any place (ie: chants, blogs, wikis, virtual offices)

Strategy - the way we get there:

eLearning Pathway might have been as.....(9 elements)
discover, envision, understand, analyze, define, enlist, plan, implement, learn

Doesn't really happen this way. Much more like putting several pieces of an elearning architecture together. It is more like including the above 9 elements, but not in a particular order.

Discover - what is the purpose of your organization, type of environment, how your place works
Envision - create a vision, something to draw and motivate people
Understand - identify gaps you may have in getting to where you want to go with your learning
Analyze - learn about all the types of learning options that you may have
Define -
Enlist - emplementing, business case (next webinar)
Plan and Implement - (next webinar)

Architecture - the place you want to get

Ad Hoc Model:
do you have info - documents, websites, etc.
do you have training - paper based, instructor lead, videos, etc
do you have elearning - we had a course and now we deliver over the internet

Foundations for Learning (Bloom) (Rube Goldberg):
Need for Knowledge - job aids, remembering info
Comprehension - job aid and on the job training
Application - self-paced training, and OJT
Analysis - instructor led and OJT
Synthesis - developing training for others

Now we need to find/develop the right learning product for the right learner and the right situation.

Ensuring Performance:
we could give a person more support, tools, information, learning

Fastest way to improve their performance
Most participants chose the answer as TOOLS.
The slowest way to get there is Learning.
A great way is support - bringing the info when they need it.

Process Perspective:
Performance can be helped/enhanced by taking data/info through requirements, using tools like job aids, webinars, etc, creating some applications, that the user can then take to better their performance.

Content Perspective:
Sometimes organizations want to push content/courses. (formal)
Sometimes staff need to find info and pull it from searches, OJT, mentors, chats, collaboration.
Sometimes it needs to be embedded into the work, performance support systems, expert systems, workflow learning

Time/Place Perspective:
Physical ----
same time same place - classes, ojt
same time, any place - webinars
Virtual----
any time, same place - job aids
any time, any place - elearning

Question is...how do you blend them successfully all together? This is the world we are moving into.

Examples:

Strategy--Technology
Learning from collocation--face-to-face (learning labs, mentoring, role playing)
Learn from collaboration--collaborative (e-labs, virtual classrooms)
learn from interaction--multimedia
learn from information--internet

Moving from Aware, to conceptual, to functional, to competent, to expert using...
basic information, structured information, applied learning, action learning

LMS Project....A Little More Progress

Well, where to start. Nothing has been happening since our last meeting in August, or so we thought. The LMS vendor has been working on there part but not quite according to the time lines we had initially set out upon. After a brief meeting today we set up weekly phone conferences between our LMS provider and the 3 project leaders (and some of their support members) here at work.

TIP 1-3 See (LMS - I don't want to be Little Miss Should've and Tony Karrer's LMS Gotchas)
TIP 4 - make sure you set up these meetings right from the beginning. Don't assume they are going to happen. This is the first way to ensure the LMS vendor is doing what they promised and that your team is doing what is expected of them to move the project forward.

We are now going to attempt to move a little more quickly then initially planned out. What does this mean? We are having several meetings (by phone) over the next few days to hammer out details of server preparation, staff database transfers and some remote training. We are going 0 to 60 without trying to go too fast. We are also aborting the idea of setting up the intranet first, then the CMS and then the LMS. We have decided to push at least the intranet and LMS forward at the same time. Amazingly enough though they (the vendor) is still convinced they can stick to the November go live date even with the several weeks of silence we've just gone through.

Meeting Werner Berger

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Werner Berger as we were talking with him to come and speak to our organization.

"Werner is the oldest North American to have stood atop the summit of Everest, and we believe him to be the fourth oldest person in the world to have accomplished that feat. Werner is the oldest North American to have completed the 'Seven Summits'."

Some of the key ideas and thoughts that came from him out of that meeting I wanted to capture and decided I would place them here.

• The Mountain doesn't care what I do, it is I that must rise above and not be a victim of circumstance
• Visions/Mission - you need a desired outcome, that is time sensitive and tangible, then decided what steps you will need to get there and just do those
• Vision yourself there and then visusualize how you got to that point
• Be clear on what you want
• Open and honest communication always needed
• Need the ablitity to challenge that which is causing trouble, permission to speak up without being penalized
• reframing your mindset not to see the problem, but the solution and the steps that you took to get to the solution

Showing The Value in Web 2.0 Tools to Create Buy-in

I listened in on Clark Quinn's presentation for the eLearning Guild yesterday and two comments hit me hard:

"You're not about training/learning, you're about empowering performance."
"You're not about computers or web, you're about all technology."

I draw from these thoughts that I can't just be the only one using these web applications. I need my colleagues to start playing with them and learning how to use the tools. I need to be more of an advocate for how the tools could assist their productivity and promote more often.

I have already successfully had the management team to try out a wiki as a tool for capturing answers to questions instead of sending out a survey and having to compile the data manually. I also have the team fully immersed in using online survey tools such as Zoomerang and Survey Monkey.

Today I decided to share the idea of mind mapping or brain storming online using the same type of principals as a wiki. Users can each go into the map and add their thoughts at their convenience. I suggested that when an occasion occurred for such a tool to let me know and I would help get one established for the team to use. The comment was put to me by my co-worker, "I really need to see the value of it to know if I'd want to use it."

Then, amazingly ten minutes later an occasion has come up to try it out. We teach a course several times a year where three of us each teach a different topic for a full day. We have decided that because there are key messages we are trying to spread through out the organization, we should make sure that we are each touching on these messages during our training sessions. Since finding meeting time together right now would prove very difficult we are going to use a mind mapping web tool to plan out what messages/themes we currently each deliver and then how we can tie them together to match the organizational plan.

My co-worker immediately said, "That's a great idea....I see value in that." Now after she uses the tool once she will be able to see how it could be applied to other situations. I just had to discover the perfect stepping off point in which to start and grab hold of her attention and willingness to discover something new.

E-Learning by Design, Not by Default (eLearning Guild Online Forum)

E-Learning by Design, Not by Default: An Overview for Setting your e-Learning Strategy - Clark Quinn, Ph.D. Quinnovation (blog)

Today the eLearning Guild began hosting another set of online forums. The opening session was by Clark Quinn of Quinnovation. I enjoy making notes in this "live blogging" manner so that I can refer back to them and I can share them a bit as a review of the presentations.

Clark's presentation was a great start to September's series of online forums. It was an extremely informative session for all levels of users of elearning design and development. He was wonderful at making sure all attendees' questions were addressed. I look forward to catching any presentations he may give in the future.

"We can no longer just learn everything we need at the beginning and hope that it will carry us through the rest of our career lives."

Problems group was facing with elearning:
multilinquistists
distance
resources
time
money
changing regulations
more simulations
competing with small organizations
internationalization
workers coming in with less skills then desired
retiring expertise
motivating learners
growing number of students
access for all learners

Is eLearning a solution or a distraction?
easy to try, but never the be all and end all of every thing

What do participants think eLearning is?
self paced, online
blogs, wikis, rss, courses, websites,
integration of technology into the learning/training process
web based
delivered over the internet/intranet

split between any learning over an electronic means and specifically training/course based

Elearning Myths
is a panacea
will go away soon
is about the technology
is about content
will replace training
is difficult and/or expensive (not with web 2.0 applications)
cheaper (no, used to sell it, but not cheaper - goal is to execute better for the same money)
only for the new generation (no)
if you build it, they will come
if you build it, they will learn (must lead to meaningful change and learning that works, is applied)

"It's not about learning it's about doing. Doing things better and more effectively."

Empowering the organization through information systems.

Trying to achieve:
Integration. Innovation. Execution. Efficiency. Effectiveness. Performance Support. Community.

Strategy:
Step 0:
Tech - hosted or web based conferences
Benefits - broad reach, low downtime, single investment into system
Costs - you tend to get low quality, increased maintenance

Step 1: Improved Instructional Design
Tech - LMS - for tracking, are we getting the ROI we expect (LMS tend to have all the money put into system and non left for content)
Benefits - getting learning that will motivate and involve learners
Costs - improve capabilities, gets over used, is very novice based

Step 2: Performance focus
Tech - portals of resources (policies, procedures, other info)
Benefits - better performance, supports more then novices
Costs - redundant development, hard to search/use (many different ways to search for info by all users)

Step 3: eCommunity
Tech - blogs, wikis, discussion boards, yellow pages
Benefits- supports top performers, captures hidden knowledge (experts can talk, share new knowledge, brainstorm, one level of education supports another)
Costs - needs support, hard to catalyze

Step 4: Greater integration
Tech - CMS (material from others), xml/dita (semantics and tags added to info)
Benefits - decrease overlap, efficiency, silos eliminated between user groups
Costs - organization tends to become coordinated

Step 5: Broader Distribution can be supported by step 4 - making learning mobile
Tech - devices (mobile, cell phones, pdas, etc), media tools
Benefits - trading bandwidth for convenience, listen while driving, learn while waiting, don't need large amounts of paper to take learning with you, Context sensitive - ie: fedex scanning a pkg before handing over,
Cost - redundancy can occur (low bandwidth, higher bandwidth), conversion costs for media

"if you're not measuring it, why use it" don't assume it's perfect from the beginning

Step 6: Performance Ecosystems - Suites of resources so that everyone can work to their best, single place to go for what you need
Tech - competency, content (description), roles (who you are and what you can have access to, or tasks you might handle)
Benefits - unified approach to everyone's efforts
Costs - linking systems throughout and organization as well as the organization

Words people were wondering definitions for:
web 2.0
SMS
ERP
LMS - learning management systems
CMS - content management systems
ILT - Instructor Based Training
WBT - Web based training
CBT - Classroom based training

Participants were 53% at level 0 and 30% level 1, a couple at level 2, 3 and 5

Essential eLearning Elements
-organizational implementation
-some project management to focus, keep scope, find resources, keep schedule
-enlightened Instructional Design
-performance focus (think of supporting full performance not just course content)
-flexibility (adapt to users, new technology)
-technology savvy (know what it is good for, get what you need but don't go overboard)
-good partners/advice (find people who can support your efforts)

Learning
1) present....apply...practice...reflect...present...appy...practice...reflect
2) reference framework...examples...space practice...job aids...communicaiton...reference framework...examples...space practice...job aid....communication

-spacing practice out will promote retention and understanding of material
-reference examples can become job aids that learners can take to the real application
-included self reflection tests for learners to decided if they are ready to move on

"You're not about training/learning, you're abut empowering performance."
"You're not about computers or web, you're about all technology."

Next steps:
-identify your needs as an ID and organization
-assess your readiness
-recruit needed capability
-scan for opportunities
-choose your priorities
-plan your implementation
-execute

Learning in an Instant

The thing I love about the internet is how quickly I can learn about virtually anything. Elearning doesn't have to be a full on college course. It doesn't have to take weeks to occur. It doesn't have to be towards a certificate or degree. I wonder about something, anything and moments later....I read, listen, observe and know.

Here's a quick example of my random elearning for today...

I get rss feeds from a variety of sources and one of the first I looked at today was about sand dunes and why they sing or making booming noises (Discovery). Cool seems interesting. Two minutes later I've read it quick article about them, the new theory behind the sounds and now I'm hooked with new questions. What does it sound like? What does it look like? Is it like an avalanche? Two minutes later I'm now watching videos and listening to audio clips. If I wanted there were lots of more links to explore the topic about. All from one sentence sent to me through my rss reader.

In 4 minutes I've learned about singing sand dunes. Asolutely amazing.

Time Zone Converting - Knowing When to Login

With the blogosphere being so large and sitting in on webinars all over the world I often have trouble remember what the time difference is for me compared to the host sites.

There are several tools that are available out on the web to choose from and here are a few that are my favourite for ease of use.

http://www.timezoneconverter.com/
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/

Loud, Ear Ringing, Rocking Time - Not elearning related

Okay this has nothing to do with elearning at the moment, but maybe I can tie it back to technology at least. Last night I saw Aerosmith put on one heck of an amazing, rocking, ear ringing, guitar blazing performance.

The 5th last show of thier 2007 World Tour was phenomenal. I saw them last year as well shortly after Steven Tyler had throat surgery and was amazed at how well he was able to still sing and reach his signature high notes. Last night however, it was like watching them again back in high school. He hit every note he should (at least to my inexpert ears) and never stopped moving all night. In fact, the entire band - Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton (who looked great), Joey Kramer, Brad Whitford - all had a ton of energy last night that swept away the whole audience. Thanks guys for a great show!!!

Okay the technology bit....no...I don't actually have one. I was going to post pictures from my cell phone, but it doesn't take great pictures. Ah ha, I now have a case to get a new pocket size camera.

A Follow-up to Finding Volunteering Opportunities Online

After a recent post about Volunteer Match I had contacted them to see if they have a similar website for Canadian based volunteers and organizations. Apparently I did not look quite far enough through the site. They do indeed and in fact they have opportunities all around the world.

Under the Search feature of the site one can search out opportunities by keyword, skills, country, preferred partners and American Corps. I mistakenly thought the link would lead to a search of the site, not opportunities. My apologies.

They did let me know that they are currently working on a plan for the UK and Canada as it would be easiest to establish in locations where English is already a primary language.

Pangea Day - May 10, 2008

This is an incredible world community event that you and I can play a role in or just observe. Pangea Day is set for May 10, 2008. This will be a day were sites around the world including London, New York, Cairo and more will be linked together through web conferencing. Visionary films, speakers and music will be shared globally to everyone. What is wonderful here is it will be broadcast live as well through television, internet, and cellphones.

This event will be much like Live Earth which occured earlier this year in July, but will take place over 4 hours connecting each other through visual messages.

There is an incredibly moving trailer on the home page of Pangea Day and footage from the TED 2006 prize winner and the inspiration behind this Jehane Noujaim.

Speaking of Ebooks....

I went on a small tangent yesterday about an ereader and today I found yet another ebook site. ManyBooks.net claims to have 18000 free ebooks for download to pdas, ipods and ereaders.

Many of the books on this site I have seen on other free ebook sites (Project Gutenberg - who have by the way really improved their site), but there is a nice feature here where you can see the top downloaded books and reviews from readers as well.

Looking For a Great Volunteering Opportunity?

I came across this site today VolunterMatch.com. It's a website network for volunteering, matching nonprofit organizations looking for volunteers with members of the public looking to donate their skills, time and effort.

As a volunteer you can view opportunities by area of interest (animal, health care, children, environment, etc) or skill that you can offer to these organizations.

I only wish this was expanded through North America.

VolunteerMatch is connecting good people with good causes.
Referrals: 3,144,487 Opportunities: 45,948 Organizations: 53,244

Thanks to my readers and 2000 visitors.

I started keeping track of visits to my blog June 21 of this year. Well early this morning I had my 2,000th visitor. I know that this includes many of the same readers that come back time and time again to read my posts and respond to some of my questions.

I just wanted to take a moment here to thank you all.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

Photo of the Day, National Geographic

My home page popped this image up as the photo of the day. I just saw it now and thought it was beautiful.

Now I know what a sea nettle looks like...there...I've learned something new today.

To e-book or Not e-book? That is the Question.

I came across a bunch of posts today for Amazon.com's new ebook reader Kindle that is coming out apparently in October. Ugg...I'm sorry but this is one ugly piece of equipment for appx. $400.

I like reading books on my pda. In fact I've read probably 20 or so in this method. For me it's a great way to get into bed, turn the lights off, read to the soft warm glow of my pda, and not disturb anyone else with blinding room lights. But.....the cost of ebooks tends to be almost the same as regular books...and there is still something to be said for having a stack of printed, bound papers in your hands. If you do it right you can build up your biceps reading something like that last Harry Potter book.

I'm not sure how well this Kindle thing is going to go over. I think people want devices that allow you do many different things with them (ie: pda, iphone, etc) rather than just a reader.

Blog Action Day - Oct. 15th, Get Involved

This is a wonderful concept. One Day....One Thought....Cool.

So what is Blog Action Day?

On October 15th - Blog Action Day, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone's mind. In its inaugural year, Blog Action Day will be co-ordinating bloggers to tackle the issue of the environment.

What can you do?

1. Publish a post on their blog which relates to an issue of their own choice pertaining to the environment.
2. Commit to donating their day’s advertising earnings to an environmental charity of their choice.
3. There is no 3..."If they choose bloggers can also promote the initiative itself. However they are also free to simply post on topic on the right day or discreetly donate to a charity without publicizing Blog Action Day."

That's all there is to it. How simple?

As of today there are 4,597 blogs/websites participating, reaching an estimated 3,516,159 people.

Welcome Aboard Our New Orientation Format

About a month ago I wrote about how our department was striving to create a new, exciting and more interactive orientation.

Well today we launched our S.S. Southlake, General Orientation. Yes indeed we have designed our first day of orientation to be that similar to welcoming guests aboard a cruise ship. We greeted each new staff with a flower lei and a "cruise" itinerary for the day. The room was decorated with as many cruise motif decorations we could find. Local party stories have moved full swing into Halloween decorations, but we seemed to do okay. We had a large life preserver at the front door that says "Welcome Aboard", there were tiki torches at the front door, other life preservers in the room were decorated with sayings regarding our strategic focus. We changed our presentation from our corporate logo to a lovely picture of a cruise ship.

Now elements of our actual content have yet to get updated. This portion of change will come when we move some of the documentation of new staff to another day. We want to add hospital scavenger hunts. These will be designed to lead staff around to key areas of the organization and pin point items of interest. Including our most popular intranet site....the Cafeteria Menu!

We haven't quite decided yet on a few games to place into the content. Once we have created a little more time within the day we plan to change the breaks into "Stretch Breaks with the Cruise Director". Also I may possibly add in some "Improv" entertainment into another of the breaks.


We did so much of this, I hate to admit, last minute last week that we didn't mention the cruise idea to anyone in the organization. Mostly we wanted to keep it a secret. Our presenters were great and are embracing the entire new concept with open arms. Our IT manager came in and used all sorts of "sea worthy" sayings in relation to password protection including..."it was our responsibility to make sure the ship didn't sink from improper computer use." For those of you who have read me before....yes this was a Dannyism.


So far the new staff seem to be welcoming the idea of the theme and playing along with the day of fun and learning. The majority of our staff are women (it is a hospital) so they laugh along, the men in the room tend to chuckle and you can see them wondering how long they have to wear the lei before they can take it off. The feedback throughout the day has been fabulous and we are already thinking of ways to make it even better.

LMS - I don't want to be Little Miss Should've

"Okay, okay, okay...it's not all my fault Tony." --- I'd rather be Little Miss Splendid

Tony Karrer (eLearning Technology) posted today on his blog, 10 Gotcha's when implementing an LMS into your organization. Apparently after sharing my frustration yesterday, Tony helpped to point out that I may be experiencing #1 - Starting With an Unrealistic Expectation of What You Need, #4 - Failing to Identify Key Differentiating Use Cases, and #6 - Not Testing a LMS.

We've (my org.) have been trying to step into the LMS world since....uggg, my calendar says....2003. I'll start with Tony's #6 Gotcha. Yes, I'll admit to this one. No we didn't get hands on testing of anything and I think the reason we never asked was, we just wanted something anything, just give us the darn thing. 2003-2004 we had an IT Director that was keen on the whole project, got all the stake holders together and looked at one demo after another after another. He left, the project went stale, the money got filtered elsewhere and we lost the momentum. 2005 the new IT Director gets more push about an intranet....no...sorry....no funding, figure something else out. So, our make shift intranet is born. It's used. More and more department want a page/section on the site. Ah-ha, now he has some leverage to find funding and begin the ball rolling again. However, we are going to make sure we get an all in one package from someone that includes and intranet, doc management and LMS. After a billion more demos, some the same from the first round, we narrow it down to two vendors. I will share here as well that during one point of all this searching around there were issues with trying to make sure we were doing what other hospitals in the area/affiliates were doing. It would have helped with pricing, sharing, hosting, etc., but again we were sick of waiting and went and begun our own project. With the two vendors chosen, we invited every stakeholder we could think of (maybe too many) and armed with a series of must-haves we evaluated them again through demos (and referenced other hospitals using the products) and put it to a vote. Again, I'll add here.... we finally had the funding approved, we just wanted one, any one, get it going. So....no there was no hands on testing. (FAIL - perhaps, time will tell regarding our product and our satisfaction, but this was definitely an oversight.)

Gotcha #1...Unrealistic Expectation....okay maybe, this is a definite we'll see. I don't think we are aiming too high here. We know it's going to be a real challenge to get our staff to start using and embracing the system. I really would just love something that is going to track our staff education (outside the organization), something to help with booking the internal courses, and something to launch and better yet marked the annoying core curriculum (still marking the paper ones from June). (PASS - but barely, I think are expectations are okay, but listening and believing the implementation time line was very, very silly.)

Gotcha #4 - Failing to Identify Key Differentiating Use Cases...I'm going to admit here....I'm not sure what this one means. I'm going to need some help clarifying this mistake.

I will be very interested to see if any of the other Gotchas show up during this project. I'm keeping track now.

What's Happening With My New LMS?!?!

NOTHING!!!!!

No I haven't neglected to post the trials and tribulations of my new LMS and all the joys I get to experience as I play with the toy. Nothing has happened. We had a meeting with the vendor, what a month ago? No contact since. Oh they better be getting something good ready for me to look at and try!

Oh and my little meeting about my job role and what path this LMS will lead me down. NOTHING!!!! We can't possibly discuss that until we have the tool in place and know exactly in what capacity we will use the darn thing.

Okay...thanks I feel better for the rant.

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Blogging - (my name in print)

Tony Karrer has an article published in this month's T+D (Training and Development) magazine (click the magazine cover to launch the reader). His article is based on blogging, but more specifically the learning and networking benefits that can come from starting your own.

I was honoured earlier in the summer when Tony asked me for my perspective on blogging. Now to see it in print; well I'm giddy with excitement. It's a great article with other perspectives from Karyn Romeis, Jay Cross, Wendy Wickham, and Brent Schlenker.

This is a bit of a tangent from the idea of blogging, but....I love the technology it takes to reading a magazine like this online. It's really cool (yes, my name is Tracy and I'm a techno-geek, "Hi Tracy"). It's a great method to get, traditionally, boomers to read printed material online. Being able to see the pages, go to the table of contents, flip through pages back and forth, and zoom in and out (picture your dad holding the newspaper at arm's length). I can not get my colleagues (boomers...sorry but it's true) to read anything online; I've got to print it out for them if I want them to read something. It makes the online reading experience more interactive and more like real life.

However, back to the article....

Some of the ideas and quotes from it that really struck for me are:

"Bloggers continually search for interesting information they can post. When they post information, they must synthesize that information, formulate additional questions, contrast and make sense of differing viewpoints, and identify patterns and trends." - Tony Karrer
I learn something new every day.

"The one thing I have really notice and experienced about the blogging community is that everyone is extremely friendly, open, and willing to share ideas and mentor one another." - Tracy Hamilton
I learn something new from my online mentors.

"If for no other reason than your job is changing, and you might want to be engaged in the process of what your new job will include." - Brent Schlenker

I'm tracking my progress.

The starting point...is to learn how to use blogs as individual work and learning tools and then become evangelists about these technologies, methods, and habits." - Tony Karrer

I'm tracking my development, sharing my experiences, and hopefully teaching and mentoring others.

e-Tools & Tips Recorded for Your Listening Pleasure

Yesterday I posted some upcoming webinars being hosted by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework.

Jyothi Jayaram from the E-Learning Networks Project at AFLF was kind enough to email me back yesterday and let me know that yes indeed the sessions are recorded for our listening pleasure.

If you happen to be somewhere else in the world sleeping when these sessions are happening you can catch them later at:

http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/home/projects/2007/pid/440

Blog Day - Whoops I'm Late

BlogDay2007

Well I completely missed Blog Day, until my newest blogging friend (Christy) linked me on to her Blog Day roll.

I'm making a note though to make sure that I participate fully next year in this. Catching up after a long weekend is making my head spin.

The instructions apparently are....
1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting
2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2007
3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs
4. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st)
5. Add the BlogDay tag using this link:http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2007 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org/

Blogs I've learned a ton of information from:

Christy Tucker - Experiencing E-Learning

Angela White - A Nice Cup of Lizard (fairly new to blogging, we started roughly the same time, is begining to implement an LMS, we are roughly starting on this at the same time too)

Cammy Bean - Learning Visions (I love Cammy sense of humour, she's almost a year into blogging - Sept. 28th - I think I've learned something new from her each week)

Cathy Moore - Making Change - Ideas for Lively Elearning (I stumbled on Cathy recently and I love all the tools and tips she keeps sharing with the blogosphere)

Big Brother 8 - Okay this one is just for fun....but I cant' help it...I'm addicted to the show. Go Evil Dick, Go!

e-Tools and Tips - (AFLF)

The Austrialian Flexible Learning Framework is hosting a series of webinars over the next month on a range of e-tools and how one can use them in the classroom.

Topics being discussed are:
Moblogs - recorded session
Podcasting - Sept. 5, 2007 1:00pm (AEST), or 11:00pm (EST - North America)
Virtual Worlds - Sept. 11, 2007 8:00pm (AEST), or 6:00am (EST)
Social Bookmarking - Sept. 13, 2007 2:00pm (AEST) or 12:00am Sept. 13, 2007 (EST)
Personal Learning Spaces - Sept. 19, 2007 2:00pm (AEST), or 12:00am Sept. 19th, 2007 (EST)
Digital Story Telling - Sept. 20, 2007 10:00am (AEST), or 8:00pm (EST)
Video in elearning -Sept. 26, 2007 3:30pm (AEST), or 1:30am (EST)
Wikis and Blogs - Sept. 27, 2007 10:00am (AEST), or 8:00pm (EST)

For more info on all sessions click here. For a time zone converter click here.

I'm am checking to see if more then the first session will be recorded and will report back when I know.